


Settling In

by tree_and_leaf



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, Friendship, Pre-ship, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-01
Updated: 2010-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-06 22:28:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tree_and_leaf/pseuds/tree_and_leaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liz can't wait to get back to Cambridge: the Brigadier is driving her up the wall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Settling In

UNIT was an impossible place to work, thought Liz, as she took off her lab coat and prepared to go home. Oh, it was wonderful to have funding and access to better equipment than even the Rutherford Labs had, and Doctor "Smith" was positively normal compared to some of the people one met in Cambridge. But she wanted to get back to college, so she could do some disciplined work, instead of rushing from crisis to crisis. Even undergraduates seemed less annoying when compared with, say, murderous shop dummies. Though you couldn't get rid of the undergrads with a modified transmitter. Pity, really.

But what really made the situation intolerable was the Brigadier. He would turn up at unpredictable moments, that ridiculous swagger stick tucked firmly under his arm, asking idiotic questions which merely showed his ignorance of science, or bearing a list of problems that he wanted solved. At once, or sooner. Oh, he was always scrupulously polite and pleasant – it was always "Miss Shaw", and "if you would, please" – but underneath it all, you could feel the assumption that she would do what he said. What he ordered, when you got down to it. The will, like a charged wire…

He probably wasn't even aware of it, she reflected, it was the military mindset. "I say to him go, and he goeth." But it was insufferable. And any criticism – though admittedly he would listen in a real crisis – just rolled off him. He was so smooth and tidy and well groomed, though that was more aesthetically pleasing than most of the men in Cambridge, who tended to affect clothes that a self-respecting scarecrow would disown. But the Brigadier was so crisply starched that sometimes she had the terrible urge to reach out and ruffle his hair, just to see what would happen.

Today he had, for once, left her alone. No arguments, no interruptions. It had been a terribly pleasant change. But it was most unlike him.

At the door of the lab, she almost walked into him.

"Ah, Miss Shaw," he said, and tugged unconsciously at his tunic. "Finished for today?"

"Well, it is half past six," she said, somewhat tartly. "I have got a life to go home to which UNIT has not yet totally succeeded in hijacking."

"Quite so. I suppose that means there's no use asking you if you would like to come along to the Mess for a drink?"

She stared at him. This was not what she'd expected.

"Well, you are part of UNIT now" he said reasonably. "You ought to get to know everyone you might be working with."

Liz sighed. "Oh, all right, that's a fair point. And to think I was congratulating myself on being spared SCR social events, at the very least."

"Oh, I think you'll find the company more entertaining here" said the Brigadier cheerfully. "Shall we?"

Insufferable man! But for some reason, she found herself smiling.


End file.
